Guiding questions

Some guiding questions for crafting impact stories include:

- What are the purposes and values of education informing your scholarship? The answer to this question likely guides your work as a scholar, in the types of questions you ask and pursue.

• Is education to allow learners to gain knowledge and become competent in certain skills? Is it to inspire lifelong learning? Is it to encourage learners to think critically and broaden their perspectives?
• What indicators more fully demonstrate whether I have achieved that purpose?

- What goals do I want to accomplish with my scholarship? What indicators respond to what I want to achieve?

• What is the most meaningful story I can tell to help others understand the value of my scholarship? Do I tell it in a way that is authentic, transparent, and trustworthy (based on data, not embellishment)?

Drafting your own impact story:

Take a moment to think about:

• Your educational philosophy:
• Your scholarship description:
• How your scholarship achieves the goals of your paradigm of education:

Now try to use traditional metrics (e.g. citation counts, grant dollars, h-indices), alternative metrics (e.g. social media attention like an Altmetric score), and grey metrics (e.g. anecdotes, emails) to story your impact.